As he writes on
Quora, he was unprepared for the answer he so often received:
"I wish I hadn't spent so much of my life
worrying."

Several years ago, when Pillemer, a world-renowned gerontologist
(someone who studies older people), met June Driscoll, a
particularly spirited 90-year old woman in a nursing home, she
told him, "It's my responsibility to be as happy as I can, right
here, today."

That interaction inspired Pillemer to find out how a generation
that's experienced the most loss, troubling historical events,
and illness could possibly be the happiest and to pass this
knowledge down to younger generations.

Pillemer launched the Legacy Project in 2004 and asked more than
1,500 Americans over 65 years of age about the most important
lessons they learned over the course of their lives.
In"30
Lessons for Living" he refers to his subjects as "the
experts" because they hold more tried-and-true wisdom than any
self-help book or pundit could possibly offer.

Pillemer writes on Quora that
he had expected "big-ticket items" like affairs, bad business
deals, or addiction as his experts' biggest regrets.

But over and over again he heard versions of "I would have spent
less time worrying" and "I regret that I worried so much about
everything."

"I found this lesson from the experts to be surprising," Pillemer
writes in "30
Lessons for Living." "Given that they had lived through
difficult historical periods and great personal tragedies, I
thought they might endorse a certain level of worry."

Instead, Pillemer explains that the experts view time as one of
our most precious resources, and worrying about events that may
not occur or that we have no control over is an inexcusable waste
of this resource.

"The key characteristic of worry, according to scientists who
study it, is that it takes place in the absence of actual
stressors; that is, we worry when there is actually nothing
concrete to worry about," he writes on Quora. "This kind of worry
— ruminating about possible bad things that may happen to us or
our loved ones — is entirely different from concrete problem
solving."

To reduce how much regret we have in a lifetime, the experts
suggested increasing the time spent on concrete problem solving
and drastically eliminating time spent worrying. They also
provided Pillemer with some ways to shift how we think about
worry so that we can more readily move past it:

Focus on the short-term rather than the
long-term.

"Well, I think that if you worry, and you worry a lot, you have
to stop and think to yourself, 'This too will pass.' You just
can't go on worrying all the time because it destroys you and
life, really. But there's all the times when you think of
worrying and you can't help it — then just make yourself stop and
think: It doesn't do you any good. You have to put it out of your
mind as much as you can at the time. You just have to take one
day at a time. It's a good idea to plan ahead if possible, but
you can't always do that because things don't always happen the
way you were hoping they would happen. So the most important
thing is one day at a time." — Eleanor Madison, 102 years old,
from "30
Lessons for Living."

Instead of worrying, prepare.

"If you're going to be afraid of something, you really ought to
know what it is. At least understand why. Identify it. 'I'm
afraid of X.' And sometimes you might have good reason. That's a
legitimate concern. And you can plan for it instead of worrying
about it." — Joshua Bateman, 74, from "30
Lessons for Living."

Actively work towards acceptance.

"So many things come to your mind. Now, for instance, somebody
might hurt your feelings. You're going to get back at him or her
— well, just let it be. Push it away. So I started doing that. I
found it the most wonderful thing because everybody has
uncharitable thoughts. You can't help it. Some people get on your
nerves, and that will be there until you die. But when they
start, and I find myself thinking, 'Well, now, she shouldn't do
that. I should tell her that …' Let it be. Often, before I say
anything, I think, "If I did that, then what?" And let it be. Oh,
so many times I felt grateful that I did nothing. That lesson has
helped me an awful lot." — Sister Clare, a 99-year-old nun, from
"30
Lessons for Living."